1. Field of the Invention
Our invention relates generally to analog and voice over packet telephony. More particularly, our invention relates to customer premise apparatus for conducting and interconnecting analog and voice over packet telephony calls.
2. Description of the Background
Today's residential and enterprise consumers continue to use the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) as the primary way for conducting voice communications. As such, the typical home and enterprise desktops include devices such as analog phones, answering machines, and speakerphones. However, advances in computer technology and the growth of the Internet are making voice communications via packet networks possible (also referred to as voice over packet (VoP)). Under VoP, handsets/headsets/speakerphones along with call control and voice compression technologies are incorporated into the desktop PC to allow consumers to place calls over a packet network, like the Internet. Similarly, emerging service providers are offering commercial-grade voice-over-packet services through the use of dedicated packet-based phones that incorporate network access, call control, and voice compression technologies into a single unit. VoP is becoming increasingly attractive to residential consumers because it provides an inexpensive way to make long-distance calls. Similarly, enterprises, which typically have data networks, are interested in VoP because it provides a way to reduce telecommunication and information technology (IT) costs. However, VoP is far from universal and far from replacing the traditional PSTN. As a result, consumers are faced with a transitional period where both the PSTN and VoP terminate at the desktop. These dual interfaces create several issues, including the need to integrate the PSTN and VoP “worlds” and an increasing amount of equipment on the desktop.
Specifically, today's residential and enterprise consumers typically have multiple PSTN interfaces at the desktop. Because the interfaces are identical technologies, it is well known in the art how to terminate these interfaces in the same device, to manipulate an interface using a single handset, keypad, etc., and to integrate the multiple interfaces to both bridge and transfer calls. However, because VoP and the PSTN are disjoint technologies, they are not easily integrated. Reasons for this difficulty include analog versus digital communications, different methods of call control, differences in delay, noise, and echo sources, and the diversity of interfaces used to access packet networks, including analog access, cable access, LAN access, etc.
Because these technologies are not easily integrated, consumers have an increasing amount of equipment appearing on their desks. This equipment includes the traditional ways of communicating such as analog-based phones/speaker-phones/answering machines, Internet access devices like modems for the PC, and duplicate emerging ways of communicating such as VoP headsets/speakerphones. In addition, consumers have no way to integrate and manipulate the VoP and PSTN interfaces allowing for traditional functionality such as conference calling and the transferring of calls.